Course Details

Cost

FREE

Upcoming Schedule

On demand

Course Provider

Coursera online courses

Coursera's online classes are designed to help students achieve mastery over
course material. Some of the best professors in the world - like neurobiology
professor and author Peggy Mason from the University of Chicago, and computer
science professor and Folding@Home director Vijay Pande - will supplement your
knowledge through video lectures. They will also provide challenging
assessments, interactive exercises during each lesson, and the opportunity to
use a mobile app to keep up with yo...

Coursera's online classes are designed to help students achieve mastery over
course material. Some of the best professors in the world - like neurobiology
professor and author Peggy Mason from the University of Chicago, and computer
science professor and Folding@Home director Vijay Pande - will supplement your
knowledge through video lectures. They will also provide challenging
assessments, interactive exercises during each lesson, and the opportunity to
use a mobile app to keep up with your coursework. Coursera also partners with
the US State Department to create “learning hubs” around the world. Students
can get internet access, take courses, and participate in weekly in-person
study groups to make learning even more collaborative. Begin your journey into
the mysteries of the human brain by taking courses in neuroscience. Learn how
to navigate the data infrastructures that multinational corporations use when
you discover the world of data analysis. Follow one of Coursera’s “Skill
Tracks”. Or try any one of its more than 560 available courses to help you
achieve your academic and professional goals.

Course Description

The course covers the basics: representing games and strategies, the extensive form (which computer scientists call game trees), repeated and stochastic games, coalitional games, and Bayesian games (modeling things like auctions).

I really enjoyed the assignments for this course. You get one attempt at each
assignment and there are not really analogous worked examples in the lectures.
You can't just look for a process - you have to understand the root of what
the lectures mean. So: 1\. Watch the lectures. 2\. REALLY think about what the
lectures mean. 3\. THEN Answer the questions. Step 1 takes about an hour, step
3 is 5 minutes. Step 2 is the fun part because game theory can be quite
counter-intuitive and when it isn't counter-intuitive you assume you've made a
mistake - when you haven't - like the game itself is playing a game and is
bluffing you -WOOOAHHH DUDE! Yeah, game theory can be pretty trippy at first
and the professors have no interest in making sure you feel safe answering the
questions. Fantastic!

I am very grateful that such demanding courses are available free online. Of the dozen MOOC classes I've taken, this felt the closest to actually being at a university. The bar is high and there's no handholding. A love for formal, rigorous mathematics is likely a prerequisite.

This course on game theory has two fundamental flaws in my opinion:
The first problem are the video lectures.
The lectures in this course are not long enough or detailed enough to
understand the concepts.
They do cover the theory but not enough practical examples to help the
students take the problem sets.
The second problem are the examples.
Only a few examples are given and they are completely uninteresting. Battle of
the sexes, prisoners dilemma, matching pennies, none of those games make any
sense or have any real practical application. I would have loved a peer
reviewed assignment were the game theory concepts could be applied to a
practical real world problem.
I leave the course with the feeling game theory is only a theoretical concept,
mostly based on common sense without a real application to the real world.

I really enjoyed it, and I think I have learnt quite a lot. Good course! The
forums were very good, and the TA helped very much, specially with the
"practice problems", that were a bit more difficult than the weekly set
problems.

I had no prior experience with this subject and I found it really challenging.
It tested my maths but I did pass - just - which was a great relief. The
course was well presented by likeable lecturers but because of the nature of
the subject I think it would have benefited from more examples and earlier
access to results and explanations for the exam questions. I bought the text
book, but had to work really hard to understand the more complex areas. But it
was very rewarding when I did finally work it all out!

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The google hangouts were more useful than most I see in MOOCs. The subject
matter is well-presented. The sample games were sometimes interesting though I
wasn't sure there were enough people participating in them.

I came into Game Theory with an BS in Engineering but no direct experience
with the subject matter in a college setting. Compared to Ben Polak's Game
Theory lectures via Yale (available on YouTube), this course has a lot of
improving to do. The lecture videos and the accompanying "textbook" are poor
vehicles for the—IMHO—very interesting subject matter. Toward the end of the
class, I even skipped the material from this class in lieu of the Yale
offerings on the week's subject matter—which actually made completing the
week's homework assignments easier. The discussion fora for this course were
great, and well-populated with useful information, insights, alternative
learning materials, etc. It was probably the best part of this course. I can't
be ungrateful for a free course, and the difficult homework kept me on my
toes, but if you are really curious about this material, make sure to check
out the Yale course videos. I think you'll ag...
I came into Game Theory with an BS in Engineering but no direct experience
with the subject matter in a college setting. Compared to Ben Polak's Game
Theory lectures via Yale (available on YouTube), this course has a lot of
improving to do. The lecture videos and the accompanying "textbook" are poor
vehicles for the—IMHO—very interesting subject matter. Toward the end of the
class, I even skipped the material from this class in lieu of the Yale
offerings on the week's subject matter—which actually made completing the
week's homework assignments easier. The discussion fora for this course were
great, and well-populated with useful information, insights, alternative
learning materials, etc. It was probably the best part of this course. I can't
be ungrateful for a free course, and the difficult homework kept me on my
toes, but if you are really curious about this material, make sure to check
out the Yale course videos. I think you'll agree that the instructor does a
better job of conveying the ideas and keeping your attention. All in all, no
regrets. Game Theory is profoundly interesting.
read moreread less

This was my second of four completed MOOCs. It has been by far the most
challenging. I have a BS/MS in computer science, but I had never studied game
theory formally. The lectures are based upon abstract concepts: definitions,
proofs, etc. There are a few concrete examples, but they are not the major
focus. Unfortunately the quizzes and final are mostly concrete problems. It
wasn't obvious how to apply the abstract concepts to the concrete cases. Thank
God for the Discussion Forums. Student participation and assistance was
fantastic. I passed with distinction, but I was only able to do so with the
support of my fellow students. I will consider Game Theory II, but only when
it is on Coursera.

I knew undergraduate level math but had the faintest of the ideas about Game
Theory. The subject in general is very interesting and this course is good
mild introduction to the topic. The good things: The course is well-designed
and the instructors are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The forums are lively
and a lot of real-world game-theoretic interpretations are discussed.
Assignments are not easy and make you think. Weekly Hangouts by the professors
are interesting too. The not-so-great things: I started the course expecting a
very practical course with immediate real-world applicability. However, the
course turned out to be more math than expected. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed
every bit of the math and the course, however, there were a lot of students
who were considerable disappointed. A lot of the course material, I am afraid,
I will simply forget after a point because I won't get to think of them again.
Good course. However, r...
I knew undergraduate level math but had the faintest of the ideas about Game
Theory. The subject in general is very interesting and this course is good
mild introduction to the topic. The good things: The course is well-designed
and the instructors are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The forums are lively
and a lot of real-world game-theoretic interpretations are discussed.
Assignments are not easy and make you think. Weekly Hangouts by the professors
are interesting too. The not-so-great things: I started the course expecting a
very practical course with immediate real-world applicability. However, the
course turned out to be more math than expected. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed
every bit of the math and the course, however, there were a lot of students
who were considerable disappointed. A lot of the course material, I am afraid,
I will simply forget after a point because I won't get to think of them again.
Good course. However, recommended to only those who wish to pursue the topic
of Game Theory further in their pedagogy.
read moreread less

== Pros: == \- Lectures are very well done \- Community forum is active with
good support from TA's == Cons: == \- The grading policy has changed and (in
my opinion) ruins the an otherwise stellar course == More info on the grading
policy: == Currently, you only get one chance to complete the test. This
drastically increases the difficulty (which isn't a bad thing, but just
something to note). HOWEVER, you get NO feedback whatsoever. You don't get to
see what the correct answers are ... you don't even get to see which of the
questions you got wrong. This made it really difficult for me to learn as this
feedback was critical for me to understand how to correct my understanding.

ike: The assignments were fun to do. This is a math class (not a computer
science or economics one.) I still wrote some groovy code in it though - I
implemented the algorithms in code. I only took the first 3.5 weeks (of the 7
week class) though. I caught the flu during week 4 and know i have too much
going on the rest of the course to even think about catching up. The lectures
were clear with good inline exercises. The homeworks made you think and
understand the material/apply it in new ways. There was also some links where
you could play the games against other students and discuss strategies. The
only thing I didn't like was the lack of feedback about homework. Once you get
it wrong, knowing the right answer (and why) is important to learning.

i did not like this course at all. the only reason was that the lectures and
notes never addressed the questions in the problem sets. every time i had to
listen to the lectures atleast twice to understand what was taught. and at
times even had to take help from various other external sources including some
lectures on youtube (which i found to be more useful). every week seemed going
more and more uphill.

Course was good, but have some issues. Lectures were interesting, but in first
weeks there were issues with subtitles to it, and for me there were to often
switches of person who spoke. Changing person after each segment is
distracting, it could be done like in Think Again Coursera's course, where
switches were after two weeks. Both exercises and exam were multiple choice
questions. They were significantly harder than examples on lectures, but if
you're good in mathematical thinking you should be able to pass this course,
even with distinction. There were few others technical mistakes, and it's
surprising because it's not first installment of this course. Course wasn't
bad at all, but it could be done better. Exercises could be a bit easier, or
lectures could have more information on how to solve them.

I enjoyed this course - not the best MOOC I've ever done, but a reasonably
easy workload one that I felt I could dip in and out of without forgetting
where I was. A lot of people on the forums complained that you couldn't
progress without looking at other resources (Wikipedia etc); although
Wikipedia was good as an additional reference, the lecture material was almost
always sufficient to complete the material. It helps to have a reasonably
mathematical background to follow this course. The presenters often explain
concepts via equations, and sometimes struggle to give a concise, memorable
lay definition. I did find the forums useful for this at times - condensing a
lecture of maths into one big idea. People talked about the 1 attempt per quiz
(and 1 attempt per exam) being a big negative. I liked this. It meant you had
to properly read and understand the material before answering, and you
couldn't keep going back to tweak things. I'...
I enjoyed this course - not the best MOOC I've ever done, but a reasonably
easy workload one that I felt I could dip in and out of without forgetting
where I was. A lot of people on the forums complained that you couldn't
progress without looking at other resources (Wikipedia etc); although
Wikipedia was good as an additional reference, the lecture material was almost
always sufficient to complete the material. It helps to have a reasonably
mathematical background to follow this course. The presenters often explain
concepts via equations, and sometimes struggle to give a concise, memorable
lay definition. I did find the forums useful for this at times - condensing a
lecture of maths into one big idea. People talked about the 1 attempt per quiz
(and 1 attempt per exam) being a big negative. I liked this. It meant you had
to properly read and understand the material before answering, and you
couldn't keep going back to tweak things. I've been guilty of this in other
courses, just to up the grade, which I don't think is a particularly valuable
learning experience. Overall, not a perfect course by any means, but a
reasonably engaging trio of lecturers and fascinating source material made me
happy I did it!
read moreread less

This was my first paced online course, and I had a good experience overall.
Each week there was about 1-2 hours of video lectures to watch. For the most
part, they were clear and easy to understand. There were a few lectures with
derivations that were more involved for students looking to delve deeper into
the theory, but we were not expected to understand each and every mathematical
proof. Each set of lectures came with a short problem set. I liked that the
problems extended slightly beyond what was covered in lecture, encouraging
some independent research and discussion on the forums. The problem sets did
have a few bugs and typos, but they were still readable/doable. The
instructors for the course were great, and definitely willing to talk to
students - they held weekly g-chat sessions where students could ask them
questions directly. I learned a lot from this class, and would be willing take
another similar class like this again.

Although I merely learned anything related to game theory before, I find no
difficulty in learning this course. The lectures are well structured,
detailed, and easy to understand. And the instructors are all very good.
There's also a screenside chat hosted by instructors every week on G+.

I guess this course could greatly accompany the Model Thinking class. In the
way that Game Theory takes some of those conceptions and gives you lots and
lots of practice. Prerequisites: logical thinking, basic probability theory.
Quizzes: most of them require careful thinking. Chances are on first try
you'll get some of them wrong and then you'd be slapping your forehead when
you see the correct answer :-). Note: in the new session (Jan 2013) you'll
have ONLY ONE attempt per quiz. So it's much harder now. Video Lectures: quite
good, very well explained and very engaging. Speed: 1.25 is probably the best.
You'll learn about the "Tragedy of the Commons" and the "Prisoner's dilemma"
and that may even help you in your everyday life. What I've learned from the
course: \- Better understand motivations of the people. \- Better ways to
negotiate and bargain (sort of microeconomics things) \- Now I know more types
of auctions and the best way...
I guess this course could greatly accompany the Model Thinking class. In the
way that Game Theory takes some of those conceptions and gives you lots and
lots of practice. Prerequisites: logical thinking, basic probability theory.
Quizzes: most of them require careful thinking. Chances are on first try
you'll get some of them wrong and then you'd be slapping your forehead when
you see the correct answer :-). Note: in the new session (Jan 2013) you'll
have ONLY ONE attempt per quiz. So it's much harder now. Video Lectures: quite
good, very well explained and very engaging. Speed: 1.25 is probably the best.
You'll learn about the "Tragedy of the Commons" and the "Prisoner's dilemma"
and that may even help you in your everyday life. What I've learned from the
course: \- Better understand motivations of the people. \- Better ways to
negotiate and bargain (sort of microeconomics things) \- Now I know more types
of auctions and the best ways to bid
read moreread less

Prior experience in the course: Had heard of the Nash equilibrium ;) Like: The
assignments were fun to do. The lectures were neat and engaging. Dislike:
Sometimes the assignments borrowed directly from the lecture. Overall: A great
course that explains the basics of game theory really well. Helps you think
about various ideas in a refreshing manner.